Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand one more time to talk about the issue of the Canada–China investment treaty, or FIPA, and to again force the Conservatives to be accountable to Canadians about this deal.
FIPA is a deal that will be in force for 31 years once it is ratified by the government, which is any time now. I am going to break it down for the members opposite because they mislead all the time. It has a 15-year term. At the end of 15 years, either party can serve notice if it wants to cancel the agreement in the 16th year. If a party does so, all investments made under the first 15 years will continue to be bound by the terms of the FIPA for a further 15 years. That amounts to a 31-year deal at minimum.
This deal took 18 years to negotiate. What is in this deal? Here are some of the concerns that we have.
It contains a provision for secret tribunals where investors from either country can sue the other country for alleged violations of this deal. If that is the case, the country being sued can choose to hold those hearings in private, with the documents not being released to the public. That is the first time in Canadian history that any Canadian government has ever signed an international treaty allowing the other party to have tribunals held in private. If the investors are successful in suing Canada or vice versa, these are taxpayers' dollars at risk. It is a fundamental principle of the rule of law that all legal proceedings should be held in public. I cannot believe that in 2013 we even have to mention that concept. However, to the Conservative government apparently it is a novel concept.
Another provision of this agreement that is of concern is the clause allowing both countries to keep all existing non-conforming measures in place, while they agree not to bring in any further non-conforming measures in the future. What is a non-conforming measure? It is a law or rule or practice that discriminates against foreign investors. Why is this of concern? It is because China has many non-conforming measures as a command economy. Canada has very few non-conforming measures because we have been on a 25-year path of trade liberalization. Thus the government has signed a deal that lets China keep in perpetuity hundreds, perhaps thousands, of non-conforming measures that will discriminate against Canadian investors, while we have very few in reverse. What are these non-conforming measures? China is renowned for having rules that require Canadian or any investors to do local sourcing. They force partnerships with local Chinese firms. They force companies to pay fees, licences and all sorts of money under the table. These are the kinds of non-conforming measures that will affect Canadian investors, and Canada has virtually none. This is an unbalanced deal.
We are going to talk about debate. The government members have said that the opposition could have debated the motion, because the government tabled this in the House for 31 days. Here is the truth. An official opposition day motion permits us to have one day of debate and then a vote. The New Democrats tabled a motion at the trade committee where we could have put this agreement before the committee for multiple days of close examination and called stakeholders, like Canadian businesses and investors, provinces, trade experts and lawyers, so that we could get the input of the Canadian public. What did the Conservatives do? They shot it down. They said no. Therefore, when the Conservatives say they were willing to debate this deal, Canadians should not be fooled. That is absolutely untrue.
My question for the government is this. If this FIPA is such a good deal for Canadians, why will the Conservatives not agree to bring this agreement before the House for multiple days of study, send it to the trade committee where we can hear from the Canadian public, and let us see if this is actually a deal worth supporting?